But the root of today's modern music is blues. Period. Deal with it.

And to hear someone strangling the shit out of a hollowbody Fender Telecaster, spewing out a million notes on the only remaining string left--well, if strangling were a crime tonight, Donald Kinsey was guilty as charged.

The great Albert King asked a 17-year old Kinsey to tour with him and since, he's worked with Peter Tosh and Bob Marley, whom he paid tribute to tonight.

"We're gonna play a Bob Marley tune, is that alright with you guys--I said 'is that alright?' You guys gotta wake up out there!"

The crowd was surprisingly sparse for the grand opening of the House Of Blues, a resident of Downtown Disney, the new nighttime entertainment complex that opened its gates earlier that morning. The $10 cover was a steal for the show as The Kinsey Report gas-fired the blues and added dashes of rock and reggae to the mix. The patriarch of this musical family, Lester "Big Daddy" Kinsey, was at home in Gary, Indiana (what a musical town that must be) with the flu and trying to rest, said Donald. "We want him to be around for awhile," and the crowd cheered its acknowledgement.

"We love Big Daddy!"

Though Kinsey cites his guitar influences as Muddy Waters and B.B. King, he came off sounding and even slightly resembling Jimi Hendrix, in voice and mannerisms and with his looping, crunchy and melodical riffs. His vocals, clean and confident, wrapped around each song as he slinked across the stage, his body a seeming extension of the instrument. The sweat poured. The band's smoking treatment of "One Step Back (From You)" closed the set.

This is the sixth House Of Blues in the chain and features two rooms, the Music Hall and the B.B. Blues Bar, which serves lunch and dinner with live music in the evenings. Out back is the VooDoo Lounge, a quite place to have a drink or a meal. Milling around during the break, I felt hypnotized by the "outsider art"--works by untrained artisans--that dazzled everywhere. Sometimes crude, oft times shockingly poetic--the overall effect is to suddenly feel like you're back in the '20's, on a porch somewhere, with a beer. And a guitar. And 750 of your closest friends.

T Model Ford was soon announced, a surprise addition, and the legendary Delta bluesman walked on stage with the aid of a crutch to the cheers of the gathering, which had finally started to thicken around the edges and on the top floor. With only a drummer for accompaniement, he planted himself on a chair in front of the microphone and proceeded to deliver three tunes, gravelly voice layering over his buttery finger-picking and strumming bass, rhythm and leads. "Where's that bald man at? I only promised to play a few songs now." He looked off-stage, smiling as a guy next to me shouted "that's what the blues is all about!". Even as he left the mic, he glad-handed us at the foot of the stage as cries of "more! more!" were shouted at him.

"I'm 76 years old, y'all--" and still kickin'.

R.L. Burnside came out next with his grandson on drums and "adopted son" Kenny Brown on guitar. This man doesn't just play the blues, he is the walking poster child for it. With fifty years of blues behind him, Burnside's technique is sonic, ragged and raw. A throaty bellow rises from the bottom of his throat as he coaxes notes both angry and sad out the guitar, a signature sound that he's honed as a regular performer at Junior's, the jook joint owned by Junior Kimbrough. The opening number, "Goin' Down South", firmly established his belief in the "only place I belong".

A stage-tech brought him a Budweiser and R.L. regarded it with surprise, offering a comical prayer ("Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done--if I don't need Budweiser, I don't need none") before launching into another sizzling trio of numbers. Some feedback problems presented a momentary distraction, but the usually tight-lipped Burnside filled the time with reflections of his cotton-picking upbringing.

"My parents were too poor to have children--the neighbors had me. My father was so cheap he'd jump over the gate so he wouldn't wear out the hinges."

Smilin' when he got a groove on, the husky howl of Burnside spat out lyrics like "you know whiskey and women that's all I crave/I believe a beautiful woman--she'll take me to my grave" with such conviction that you imagine he knows a thing or two about the subject. And songs like "Ass Pocket O' Whiskey" further nail the point home with searing slide guitar attacks that were delivered without breaking a sweat or raising an eyebrow. Brown kept pace and punctuated R.L.'s jive with smooth distortion, alternately laying out a sonic canvas and taking the spotlight for several acrobatic solos. The white boy's got soul. "Poor Boy" closed the set with its stabbing, hooting rhythm, chugging along like a frenzied locomotive.

Headlining the evening was up-and-coming New Orleans sensation Tab Benoit, who just happened to be celebrating the release of his new CD Live: Swampland Jam. He sheepishly offered that it was "available, right across the street" at the new Virgin Records Megastore. The Smithosonian Insitute of phonographic fun. Backed by the dynamic team of Doug Therrien on bass and Allyn Robinsonon drums, Benoit was packing fire before the curtain finished opening with "Goin' Back Down South" (a running theme, it seems), a savage original with jazzy overtones and shards of dissonance. Benoit's voice is a sort of like a leaner and sharper Michael McDonald, always on the money and just as sweet as it is shredded. Dynamics play a big role in the trio's jam, with Brown and Robinson stepping back from Benoit as he riddled the frets, spraying out a frenzy of notes and then dampering the strings; clucking them into obscurity.

Someone requested an Albert Collins song and they were rewarded with the wonderfully sultry ditty "Too Many Dirty Dishes", an effective number made even better by Benoit's passionate treatment. This slow-burn story of kitchen infidelity saw the most intensely quivering licks of the set. Something we don't know, Tab?

Someone called out a request and Benoit obliged with the country-rock flavored "Crawfishin'". Therrien fairly stayed in the background, stepping out only occasionally with looping, basement-level bass lines. With a double-picking rapid fire delivery, Benoit was shredding strings on his hollowbody Fender Telecaster every other song.

"We can't end the show like this--not after what we've seen here tonight--" he said, motioning for R.L. Burnside, the Kinsey Report and T Model Ford to come out. The resulting jam smoked along until 1:30 a.m., with Willie Green on harmonica. At one point, T Model Ford seemed to slip out of tempo and tuning, which drew the concern of Donald Kinsey and the others. But he pulled out of it with a smile and the jam raged on.

An auspicious debut for the grand Music Hall, which is sporting a world-class line up of acts in the coming weeks. The sound overall was excellent except for some sporadic feed-back problems that will probably be ironed out as more shows come through. Other than that, it was one hell of a baptism for the venue which will, no doubt, be the place to experience the blues as it was meant to be--raw, up close and highly personal.